I’m writing this column in the first week of August, right in the middle of the 12- (or is it 13-) week summer vacation from public school, and it got me wondering: why do we still have such a long summer break when we know that childcare for families is now a huge issue?
Many families depend on meals from school to keep their children fed, and many cannot afford camp or summer programs, leaving children to either provide childcare to younger siblings or sit at home with their screens and TV while their parents work. There is plenty of evidence that some children — particularly from lower-income households — who are more isolated and alone over the summer experience more learning loss than children of families who can afford to send them to camps or programs, or who can afford to have a parent at home. Why not year-round school?
I was told when I was young that we have long summer vacations because farmers need their children to help on the farm during the summer, but that’s not true. Farms need extra help in the spring for planting and in the fall for harvest, and many schools during our most agrarian years were open through the summer. Some students did take time off during the spring and fall to help their families in the fields.
It was the city schools that struggled in the summer. Cities in the industrial era were incredibly hot, humid, dirty and disease-ridden. Because families living in tenements basically on top of each other, diseases spread rapidly. Families that could afford to leave for summer did so, moving to the countryside, while the poor kids stayed behind. With so many students away, the cities decided to close schools for summer until families returned. Horace Mann and other reformers pushed for universal schooling, but there was a wide range of calendars in use until 1900, when the standardized 180-day school year with a long summer break was established.
There are some districts today that use what is known as a balanced calendar, offering 180 days of school spread throughout the year, with shorter chunks of schooling followed by a couple of weeks of break. However, the calendar with the long summer break is by far the most common design in use today. That calendar was established more than 125 years ago in a very different world than the one we live in today. This got me thinking about the impact that other decisions from more than a century ago continue to have on public education, and how they still define our system in many ways. Consider these educational practices introduced in the late 1800s and early 1900s.
Horace Mann and a standardized curriculum
Horace Mann, often called the father of public education, pushed for universal, compulsory schooling, with all children getting the same education taught in the same way. Mann thought that schooling would help to prevent social rebellion, protect against class conflict and “inculcate moral habits,” guided by teachings from the Bible (though not attached to any particular religion). He hoped that with universal education, the population would be less drawn to anarchy and rebellion, and more prepared to enter society as workers. Mann was strongly influenced by educational practices he observed in Prussia, which he found very effective in establishing social control. Some educators praised his efforts to educate more of the public and prepare them to engage with the industrializing society. Critics complained that this very top-down model limited creativity and diversity, pushing students toward a one-size-fits-all educational experience.
The Committee of Ten and standardized course sequences
Our basic K-12 sequence came from the so-called Committee of Ten, a group of university professors charged with coming up with a plan to standardize and develop a consistent structure to the education high school students would receive. This committee released a report in 1894 which recommended eight years of elementary education followed by four years of high school education. They identified important subjects that students should know, including Latin, Greek, English, mathematics and the sciences (physics, chemistry, and astronomy). Their recommendation was that every student should receive the same education taught in the very same way, so that each student would have the benefit of an equivalent education no matter what they pursued after graduation. They also recommended that teacher education should be standardized so all students would be taught by well-trained educators.
The credit hour
Students need a certain number of credit hours in each subject, also known as Carnegie Units, in order to graduate. For example, they might need four units of math, four of ELA and two units of social studies. It turns out that Carnegie Units, or credit hours, were actually developed by the industrialist Andrew Carnegie (yes, that Andrew Carnegie), who was not an educator. He developed the credit hour as an accounting practice to help him calculate pension payments for teachers; it had nothing to do with curricular design or best teaching practices. It still forms the basis for our approach to secondary and post-secondary education, though to repeat, it was an financial accounting decision rather than an education-based one.
The factory model of education
One of the challenges for factory owners in the early 20th century was the influx of immigrant workers. Many spoke no English and had little or no experience in factory work. Most had worked within a family business, on a farm or in other labor that was not organized around an assembly line. One of the assignments for schools was to help these new Americans learn how to be a part of the industrial system, and schools were designed to fulfill that role.
The very structure of the school day was organized to mirror life in the factory. Students moved through an educational assembly line from one task to another, cued by bells signaling the beginning and end of each period. This standardized, routine process emphasized attendance, punctuality and meeting a standard set by management. There was little room for questioning or student input; their task was to do and learn what they were told.
That design remains the dominant model employed by schools despite the demise of most factory jobs. We still herd hundreds, if not thousands, of children together into buildings that often look like factories, putting them through a common set of tasks in discrete periods. The bells still ring in many schools, and the students are judged by those who run the system. We are no longer educating students to work in factories. What are we educating them for today?
Today
From the school calendar to the shape and size of our high schools, the flow of the day along the educational assembly line and the standardizing of course content, we are still operating within a system largely created in the early 1900s. Does it make sense to continue to educate our young people within a system designed for the United States of 1900? Is that what our young people need in 2026 and going forward?
The question of what our children need today is given lip service with no follow-through. The state of Massachusetts created a “portrait of a graduate,” outlining what graduates need to know and be able to do, yet they promptly ignored it in the governor’s recent proposal to introduce another round of standardized testing and required subjects — a plan that could have been written by the Committee of Ten. Given the persistent crises that confront educators and the financial policies that bankrupt many of our schools and communities, real conversations about what our children actually need just don’t happen. Instead, we continue offering a public education that prepares our young people for the early 20th century.
We know that our current system is falling short, but it needs more than lip service. We need to find the courage to take the necessary time to really look at what our children need in this century and make the changes that will truly serve them today and tomorrow.
Doug Selwyn taught at K-12 public schools from 1985 until 2000 and then at university as a professor of education until he retired in 2017. He is the chair of the Franklin County Continuing the Political Revolution education task force. You can reach him at dougselwyn12@gmail.com.